Sociology Commons^™

Homeschool Participation In Public School Extracurricular Activities In Tennessee: A Case Study, Elizabeth Rockholt

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The study describes a qualitative collective case study regarding the possibility of homeschool participation in public school extracurricular activities in West Tennessee. Literature exists on extracurricular activities but not on the effect on the homeschooled student specifically. The research questions addressed: How do homeschool parents in west Tennessee whose children are involved in one or more extracurricular activities outside of the public school system feel about current legislation regarding homeschool students being excluded from participation in public school extracurricular activities other than sports? Why would homeschool parents in west Tennessee allow their child to participate or why would they not …

Gendered Divisions Of Fertility Work: Socioeconomic Predictors Of Female Versus Male Sterilization, Andrea Bertotti

Sociology & Criminology Faculty Research

Domestic labor researchers have examined a multitude of duties disproportionately performed by women, yet the responsibility associated with navigating a couple's fertility—fertility work—has been overlooked. Using data from the 2006–2010 National Survey of Family Growth (N = 1,415), the author examined how racial and socioeconomic factors affect the division of contraceptive fertility work among married and cohabiting women who rely on either their partners' vasectomies or their own sterilizations. Drawing theoretical connections between fertility work and housework, resource- and gender-based perspectives were used to assess whether women's or their partners' characteristics are stronger predictors of sterilization type, and whether women's …

"There's So Many Fabulous Butts In Derby": The Skating Body In Women's Flat Track Roller Derby, Amanda Nicole Draft

Wayne State University Theses

Women's flat track roller derby is a growing niche sport that has gathered much attention from media and academics alike. Previous research has analyzed the sport from a gendered view with limited focus on bodies in the broader sense. I attempt to fill this gap in the literature by asking: How do derby skaters define the derby body? In what ways do skaters resist and/or accommodate conventional bodily norms and those within derby? Utilizing an ethnographic repertoire of observation, interviews, and autoethnography, I examine the experiences of women derby skaters for a local flat track league located in the Midwest. …

Human Capital In The Context Of Race, Gender And Geography: How Does It Really Help To Get A Good Job?, Ian Palmer

Wayne State University Theses

Human capital appears to be no longer adequate to explain why some people get good jobs and others get bad jobs. Increasingly, a person's race, gender, class and geographical location seem to be better predictors for the type of jobs people secure. The data that is used to explore the problem comes from a phone survey of Southeastern Michigan conducted during 2002 and 2003. Geographic space definitely affected demographic variables when looking at the makeup of the temporary workforce.

Black & White Running Bodies: Masculinity, Muscularity & Femininity, Jenny Lee Lendrum

Wayne State University Theses

Women as a population have been marathoning for less than thirty years, many are fresh and new to the sport, and are making such sacrifices by squeezing the sport into their full lives along with their career and familiar responsibilities. Many women, Black and White, some with family responsibilities, others with demanding careers, several with both, are running. By doing so, they are challenging male dominance and demand an equality on and off the road. Women have created meaning in their lives as a result of marathoning. Their lives, perceptions and experiences, and bodies have changed in the process.

Stand Up And Tell Them You're From Detroit:Belonging, Attachment, And Regional Identity Among Suburban Detroiters, Paul Curran

Wayne State University Theses

Research shows that communities with a broadly embraced regional identity provide residents with a more gratifying social experience. A regional identity often emerges when residents exhibit a sense of belonging and attachment to their community. Detroit provides an interesting canvas to explore these concepts given a long history of tension between the city of Detroit and its suburbs. Despite these challenges, anecdotal evidence of suburban solidarity with the city exists. Using in-depth interviews with long-time residents of suburban Detroit, I explore the meaning of being a "Detroiter." Why are some suburbanites eager - and others reluctant - to embrace a …

North Dakota’S Oil Boom And Its Effect On North Dakota Politics, Nick "Nick" Nelson

Political Science Theses and Capstones

North Dakota’s oil boom is causing some of its countries to experience significant population increases. I study the effect this is having on the politics of North Dakota. To assess the effect of increased oil production on the population of counties and its effect on the politics of those counties I gathered statistics at the county level in the areas of oil production, populations including total, black, Hispanic, white, and male populations, and voting behavior (Republican or Democrat) from the United State Census, the North Dakota Secretary of State, and the North Dakota Industrial Commission, Department of Natural Resources. My …

Latino Party Id: Inherited Or Learned?, Dylan Davison

Political Science Theses and Capstones

The purpose of this research is to find out whether political party identification is learned or inherited in Latino voters in the United States. Latino voters are the largest growing minority group in the United States. Understanding this growing block of voters will yield dividends in elections to come. I utilized a 2008 dataset from a post‐election survey by Pew Research group on Latino voters. I hypothesize that recent immigrants learn their party identification while more established Latino voters are more likely to have inherited their political views. If Latino party identification is learned it is more likely that they …

A Bottle Half Empty: Bottled Water, Commodification, And Contestation, Daniel Jaffee, Soren Newman

Sociology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Bottled water has rapidly been transformed from an elite niche market into a ubiquitous consumer object. Yet the literature on drinking water privatization has largely neglected the growth of bottled water and its emergence as a global commodity. This article draws on Harvey’s analytic of accumulation by dispossession to explore how commodification unfolds differently across multiple forms of water. Based on ethnographic interviews with participants in two conflicts over spring water extraction in rural U.S. communities by the industry leader Nestlé, we make three arguments. First, contestation over bottled water commodification is refracted through competing framings regarding control over local …

Weighing In On Heavy Issues: Exploring Race, Nativity, And Pre-Pregnancy Body Mass Index In Relationship To Preterm Birth And Low Birth Weight, Karyn Alayna Stewart

Sociology - Dissertations

Black women in the United States occupy a unique position of disadvantage in our social strata. This dissertation explores the health consequences associated with race, nativity, and pre-pregnancy body mass index among Black and White women giving birth in the Central New York region using data from the 2004 through 2010 New York Statewide Perinatal Data System. It examines the likelihood of the occurrence of a preterm birth or low birth weight birth. This study also examines racial disparities in birth outcomes between Black women and White women overall in addition to nativity disparities in birth outcomes among Black women. …

Can't Escape From The Memory: Social Media And Public Sector Labor Law, William A. Herbert

Publications and Research

The Web 2.0 communicative revolution is impacting many fields of law, including labor and employment law. This article focuses upon the application and impact of statutory and constitutional doctrines on the use of social media in public employment in the United States. As part of that analysis, it will compare and contrast developments under the National Labor Relations Act, state collective bargaining and tenure laws and the First Amendment concerning social media. Through this comparative analysis, the article will highlight the distinctions and similarities of public sector labor law and their implications for the future.

University Of Illinois School Of Veterinary Medicine Wildlife Clinic, Maci Oelschlager

A with Honors Projects

An account of what the author learned by volunteering project at the University of Illinois' Wildlife Medical Clinic.

C-U Canteen Run, Emily Scott

A with Honors Projects

Powerpoint presentation describing student's volunteer work with C-U Canteen Run, a program run by the Salvation Army which provides people throughout the community with food, water, clothes, and other basic necessities.

The Global Slavery Index, Monti Narayan Datta, Fiona David, Kevin Bales, Nick Grono

Political Science Faculty Publications

The Global Slavery Index report is published by the Walk Free Foundation (“Walk Free”). Walk Free is committed to ending all forms of modern slavery in this generation. Modern slavery includes slavery, slavery-like practices (such as debt bondage, forced marriage and sale or exploitation of children), human trafficking and forced labour, and other practices described in key international treaties, voluntarily ratified by nearly every country in the world.

Walk Free’s strategy includes mobilising a global activist movement, generating the highest quality research, enlisting business, and raising unprecedented levels of capital to drive change in those countries and industries bearing the …

Social Policy And Redistribution: Chile And Uruguay, Jennifer Pribble, Evelyn Huber

Political Science Faculty Publications

In this chapter we ask two questions: First, we ask whether these governments, exemplifying best-case scenarios in Latin America, have embarked on a viable path toward a sustainable social democratic welfare state. Second, we ask whether and why they differ in their approaches and progress on this path, paying close attention to how the parties' organizational characteristics influence this variation. In their introduction, Levitsky and Roberts classify the left parties in Chile and Uruguay as an "institutionalized partisan Left," distinguished between an "electoral-professional" Left and a "mass-organic" Left. Uruguay's FA is an example of a mass-organic left party, while Chile's …

Political Culture Of Post-Soviet Economic Change: The Case Of Financial-Industrial Groups, Jeffrey K. Hass

Sociology and Anthropology Faculty Publications

Beneath the seeming chaos and conflict of Russia's post-socialist experience were structured dynamics of contentious reconstruction of fields (collective relations of power and culture institutionalized as authority and definitions of "normal"). This essay argues that the Russian experience was driven in no small part by contention over remaking core meanings and authority of field relations, practices, and boundaries. Contention over field reconstruction emerged as three groups' interests and taken-for granted meanings of normality collided: those of Soviet-era managers, a new class of financial entrepreneurs and elites, and state elites and officials. Post-socialism has been a story of competing elite culture …

(Re)Presentin' The Tragic Mulatto: An Analysis Of Multiracial Identity In Rap Music, Matthew Oware

Sociology and Anthropology Faculty Publications

Extant research on racial identity formation among multiracial individuals with one black parent focuses on the determinants of a multiracial versus monoracial identification (Harris and Sim 2002) and the negotiation of racial identification with peers, family, or friends (Rockquemore and Brunsma 2002, Khanna and Johnson 2010, Khanna 2010). In addition, a fair amount of research examines whether multiracial identification harms or promotes the psychological well-being of these individuals (see Binning et al. 2009 and Cheng and Lively 2009 for contrasting findings). This chapter analyzes these debates within the popular genre of rap, focusing on rap artists who have one black …

Contesting The North Williams Traffic Operations And Safety Project, Amy Lubitow, Thaddeus R. Miller

Urban Studies and Planning Faculty Publications and Presentations

The North Williams Traffic Safety Operations Project, overseen by the Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT), was proposed in 2010. With an initial budget of $370,000, the project was designed to reduce conflict between buses, bicycles and motor vehicles on North Williams Avenue and improve the overall safety and accessibility of the street. As is common practice, PBOT’s first step in this project was to organize a stakeholder advisory committee (SAC) of interested business owners, neighborhood association representatives, residents, and key stakeholders living or working along North Williams Avenue who would be tasked with advising the city on the project. However, …

Intersectionality: Mapping The Movements Of A Theory, Devon Carbado, Kimberlé W. Crenshaw, Vicki M. Mays, Barbara Tomlinson

Faculty Scholarship

Very few theories have generated the kind of interdisciplinary and global engagement that marks the intellectual history of intersectionality. Yet, there has been very little effort to reflect upon precisely how intersectionality has moved across time, disciplines, issues, and geographic and national boundaries. Our failure to attend to intersectionality’s movement has limited our ability to see the theory in places in which it is already doing work and to imagine other places to which the theory might be taken. Addressing these questions, this special issue reflects upon the genesis of intersectionality, engages some of the debates about its scope and …

Drawing The Line: Student Reassignment Policies In South Carolina, Naomi Rachel Simmons

Theses and Dissertations

This study investigates the complex nature of student reassignment plans developed between 2006 and 2008 in three South Carolina school districts: York School District 3, Dorchester School District 2, and Greenville School District. The study is guided by the following research question: How are the district policies for student reassignment understood through the lens of institutional and organizational theories? To answer this question this research draws on Institutional Theory (both old and new) to develop a comprehensive model that specifically addresses the strategies a district uses to create a plan that responds to the demographic and political pressures exerted on …

Parental Involvement During College Preparation: Differences Between First And Non-First Generation College Students, Deronta Renard Spencer

Theses and Dissertations

In this thesis I explore differences in parental involvement during college preparation between first and non-first generation college students. I used the theories of social, cultural, and human capital to answer this question. I also look at how first and non-first generation differ among several other variables: parent's education, socioeconomic status, religion affiliation, religious attendance, gender, birth order, family structure, high school academic success, and parent involvement during sibling college preparation. I find that first generation students receive less parental involvement during college preparation than non-first generation college students. I also find differences between first and non-first generation students in …

Stateless In The United States: Current Reality And A Future Prediction, Polly J. Price

Faculty Articles

Statelessness exists in the United States-a fact that should be of concern to advocates of strict immigration control as well as those who favor a more welcoming policy. The predominant reasons for statelessness include the presence of individuals who are unable to prove their nationality and the failure of their countries of origin to recognize them as citizens. Migrants with unclear nationality, already a problem for the United States, obstruct efforts to control immigration by the deportation of unauthorized aliens. These existing problems of national identity will increase exponentially if birthright citizenship in the United States is amended to exclude …

Parental Influence On Inhalant Use, Alina M. Baltazar, Gary L. Hopkins, Duane C. Mcbride, Curtis J. Vanderwaal, Sara Pepper, Sarah Mackey

Faculty Publications

The purpose of this article is to examine the dynamics of the relationship between parents and their adolescent children and their association with lifetime and past-month inhalant usage. The population studied was seventh- through ninth-grade students in rural Idaho (N = 570). The authors found a small, but consistent, significant inverse correlation between parental bonding and monitoring of behavior and inhalant usage. There was also a significant positive correlation between verbally aggressive behavior in the family and inhalant use. The data imply that family interaction may play a significant role in the use of inhalants and that the family can …

Relationship Between Trust And Perceived Value Of Faculty Unionization Among Full-Time Faculty In Selected Michigan Community Colleges, Stacy L. Horner

Dissertations

Problem Statement. There are conflicting studies on the relationship between the union and nonunion faculty and trust. Studies have shown that the union environment inherently produces a distrustful atmosphere and, with a union, employees are actually more dissatisfied than their nonunion counterparts. On the other hand, this has created a cycle where faculty may not trust administration, and administration may not trust faculty. For example, when doing negotiations, each party fights on behalf of itself, instead of fighting for the betterment of the organization. However, unions can give faculty a voice with administration and state and federal government, and may …

An Empirical Assessment Of Corporate Environmental Crime-Control Strategies, Sally S. Simpson, Carole Gibbs, Melissa Rorie, Lee Ann Slocum, Mark A. Cohen, Michael Vandenbergh

Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology

Corporate illegality is often attributed to greed by corporate managers and insufficient legal safeguards. Underlying this argument is an explicit critique of corporate crime regulatory systems. Yet there is little systematic investigation of the relative merits of different types or components of crime-control strategies; research comparing more punitive command-and-control strategies with self-regulatory approaches is particularly lacking. In this Article, we assess these crime prevention-and-control mechanisms in the context of individual and situational risk factors that may increase the likelihood of illegal behavior in the environmental arena. We use data drawn from two groups of business managers who participated in a …

Towards Aid Effectiveness : Contested Theories And Concepts : A Case Study Of Ghana’S Community–Based Rural Development Project, Kwadwo Adusei-Asante

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

The discussion of aid effectiveness continues to gain prominence in international development policy discourse and analysis. However, the question of why aid seems to be ineffective is far more complicated and remains largely unanswered. While the notions that aid drives donors’ interests and creates dependency are still relevant, this thesis confronts the problem, by examining the issues that influenced the operationalisation and effectiveness of aid programs in the context of Ghana’s Community-Based Rural Development Project (CBRDP) (2005-2011). By arguing that aid dependency and “aid as a concept” are different, the thesis makes the most basic assumption that ‘aid’ is not …

The Independent Influences Of Relational And Physical Victimization On Subsequent Physical Aggression In Middle School Children, Michelle D. Mioduszewski

Master's Theses

Using Agnew's strain (1992) and integrative (2005) theory, this study hypothesized that relational and physical victimization would be independently associated with self-reported physical aggression at six months and one year after victimization. Secondary data analysis was conducted using three waves of a longitudinal multisite dataset used for the "Outcome Evaluation of the Teens, Crime, and the Community/Community Works (TCC/CW) Training Program, 2004-2005." Independent variables at wave one were relational victimization occurring none or one time (56.2%), or two or more times (43.8%), and physical victimization occurring none or one time (77.8%), or two or more times (22.2%). The dependent variables …

Ethnicity, Assimilation And Transnationalism: A Comparative Study Of Eastern European Migration To The United States (1940-2012), Cezara Olga Crisan

Dissertations

Cezara Olga Crisan

Loyola University Chicago

ETHNICITY, ASSIMILATION AND TRANSNATIONALISM:

A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF EASTERN EUROPEAN MIGRATION

TO THE UNITED STATES (1940-2012)

Transnationalism is a relatively new pattern of migration; the process by which transnationalism has supplanted assimilation has been the subject of this study, and it has been done by comparing the immigration experience of Eastern Europeans, before and after the demise of the communist regimes in Eastern Europe.

The study employed a qualitative methodology with a total of sixty one respondents divided in two groups from Eastern Europe - a "pre-communist wave" and a "post-communist wave" - who …

Tarrying With The "Private Parts", Robert F. Reid-Pharr

Publications and Research

Two-thirds of the way through Object Lessons (2012), Robyn Wiegman's provocative study of the institutional and ideological development of what she names identity-based modes of inquiry in US colleges and universities, the author recounts a 2003 trip she took to Leiden to attend the inaugural meeting of the International American Studies Association. There, she was regularly met with the claim that American studies, at least as it is practiced by citizens and long-term residents of the United States, was deeply provincial and too caught up with rehearsals of the humdrum difficulties of American social and cultural life, particularly our always …

Strengths And Limitations Of Qualitative Approaches To Research In Occupational Health Psychology, Irvin Sam Schonfeld, Joseph J. Mazzola

Publications and Research

Like all research methods, qualitative methods have strengths and limitations. This chapter describes seven strengths and five limitations. With an understanding of their strengths and limitations and how to minimize and/or balance them, occupational health psychology (OHP) researchers can benefit from qualitative methods. It is important to understand that qualitative findings do not establish generalizable cause-effect relations. However, qualitative methods can help an OHP researcher develop a theory of causality and derive hypotheses related to the theory and, thus, motivate quantitatively organized research designed to test the hypotheses. The challenge for the OHP researcher is to be mindful of what …